First Cell And Programming Of Dna

Discussion in 'Religion, Beliefs and Spirituality' started by M3ssenger, Jul 8, 2014.

  1. Trying to prove or disprove God is an effort in and of itself, without any form of approachable and calculable waypoints. The debate becomes lost in its effort to really buckle down on certain topic, or rather, sub-topics.

    So lets not have atheists bashing the theist for their beliefs (or lack thereof). Or a debate about evolution, because evolution is observable in nature. Lets get down to science.

    DNA, and the first living cell that sprung up, either on earth or any other planets.

    How can DNA program itself, and how can the first cell form without that coding? DNA itself is information; a fraction of one strand contains more information than millions of CDs.
    Certain people have mentioned that certain peptides and proteins in the primordial soup stirred up to form the cell wall, nucleuois, etc.

    But what if theory doesn't meet with reality?
    What if God created life? It's a big what if, with many threads here on GC debating this topic. but...maybe..

    God is not 'in the clouds' watching humanity, but rather in a higher frequency plane/dimension.
    Maybe he was always here, from the beginning of time, and we cannot fathom his genesis. But let's skip all that and discuss abiogenesis.

    Do you really think life, even sentient life, form from chaos and lifeless sediment?

    How did the genesis of the first cell and encoding Of DNA take place without a creative intelligent force to encode this information?


    [Consider cause and effect, and Newton's third law, and law of thermodynamics in its effects.
    Without the push, how can the pendulum (newtons cradle) move? (Big bang/newton)]


    Or are we just that lucky?






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  2. We're just that lucky.. :smoking:
     
    But seriously, we don't know the specifics of abiogenesis yet.. You're pretty much faced with 2 options when thinking about how life emerged, either some intelligent force created it or it randomly happened, or go for the middle ground like a lot of people are doing today and saying there is an intelligent force that created the random universe. I personally don't believe in any unseen forces, the metaphysical, or supernatural.. so I am left with it forming on it own through lifeless matter. Everyday we are learning more and more about how life forms, and while it might even take us a few more generations I have confidence that it'll be explainable. That's why I could never settle on an answer such as God.
     
    I know you didn't want to debate God, just wanted to get that out there. As for how the first cell formed, there could be several different ways. It's not like it just became a fully functional cell right off the bat. I think that's what throws a lot of people off, imagining it just pop into existence as a perfectly functioning cell in a primordial soup. Same with how DNA formed, it's not like it was a complete strand right away. You'd have the building blocks randomly joining and even randomly breaking apart in the soup of life. They need a stable connection to continue existing and not falling apart. Once it makes a stable connection, it'd just be floating with the rest. As it bumps into other building blocks, they might join up, but they too could fall off if not stable. This could continue on for many years as well until it randomly bumps into another block that can form a stable connection. Rinse and repeat over a long period of time and strands start to form. Then different events and conditions bring about different ingredients.. I said then, but that process was more than likely happening at the same time.. but it's just a matter of being in the right place at the right time. With abiogenesis, there's even a chance that there's a multitude of right places at the right time. Different paths (the ingredients) leading to the same destination (a cell). When you envision a cell, break it down into all it's parts, pull the DNA out and break it down. All those pieces fit together step by step through time.
     
    A lot of people like to use The Watchmaker argument to combat abiogenesis, but it's really not on par. Now if you took that argument a tweaked it, it'd be like abiogenesis. Say you take 10 watches and break them down into all their individual pieces and throw them into a box. You shake it around for billions of years and you'd never get a watch out of it.. but if you made it more like how life forms, you could. If a piece were to touch another piece that it'd normally be attached to and they connected into a stable form, or even imagined them forming a magnetic connection like how atoms for bonds. If it touched something similar, it might connect, but it wouldn't be able to form a lasting connection since it's not stable.. it'd fall back into the mix. Through shaking that box up for ages, there's a good chance that those pieces will randomly bump into a piece it's supposed to be attached to and form a connection. Given enough time, you'd get a watch out of the mix.. with a ton of incomplete pieces yet bouncing around. That's the proper way to compare The Watchmaker and abiogenesis.
     
  3. That might explain the physical aspect of cells, but what about the information from DNA. DNA cannot code itself, like saying a computer can code itself a software out of hardware. Shouldn't that be taken into consideration? For cause there had to be an effect.


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  4. Thing is, DNA is more like coding for what was done in the past and worked. We still don't know the specific "trigger" for life, and it might not even be DNA exactly. We all know UV light mutates DNA. That's telling us that the energy from UV light is absorbing into the DNA, giving it energy. That could be one of the necessary steps to life, like giving life to Frankenstein. Hell, it might even be that the ingredients needed to come together in a specific way in the depths of the oceans, float up to the surface and get struck by lightning to get things started. Or both processes were needed. We don't know yet, but whatever happened uses DNA to code for what worked in the past to get it to where it is. That's where the random mutations come into play. It codes for what worked, then a mutation occurs. The majority of the time the mutations won't be beneficial, but when there is a beneficial one, it will better survive. That mutation worked, so it gets passed along and all that stem from it will be coded with the new, beneficial mutation.

    The majority of your DNA is a footprint from your past, including your individual past and your evolutionary past. We can look and compare DNA of people and get a good idea of when they merged and broke apart. When they traveled the oceans to a new land. What's cool is, we can even look at the DNA of bacteria and viruses that prey on humans and also trace its past. Such as herpes, its DNA shows an almost identical past as humans in terms of when and where it traveled since it pretty much has been with us for such a long time.
     
  5. We will probably never know the truth of how it all begin.  It's literally impossible to know.  Only theories will exist with supporting evidence.  Regardless, I don't find it hard to believe this all began from chaos. You have to consider the rapidity with which atoms collide and how old the earth really is.  It's like a trial and error sort of thing and it took a many, many years for the right situation to arrive for life to begin.  But asking why DNA replicates itself is like asking why light waves allow us to see.  It's just how it behaves and from this life was created. 
     
  6.  
    I agree with all that except the part about it being literally impossible to know. Improbable is more like it. There could be countless combinations and factors that lead to life, or there might only be one specific way. I would lean towards countless cause I see the universe as infinite, and if there is more than one way to life in an infinite universe, there's more than likely an infinite amount of paths to take to get to life. Everyday we get closer and closer to recreating life in the lab. We've figured out how many of the building blocks to life form. If we ever figure out how to recreate life, we might look at it and go "sweet, we did it! but shit, looking at it and comparing it to life on Earth, life on Earth formed differently.."
     
    Another argument people use for the idea of creation vs abiogenesis is "sacred" geometry. How DNA, cells, and life seem to follow a pattern. Most commonly used is the golden ratio, which walks hand in hand with Fibonacci sequence. That is 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377 and so on. A good many organisms follow this pattern, others follow different patterns, but this one is pretty easy to explain. Like I said earlier, DNA codes more so for what worked previously. It doesn't predict the future, it builds for the present based on the past.
     
    So say a plant begins to evolve. At first it doesn't have any leaves, then a mutation occurs where it gains a leaf. It reproduces and it's offspring is coded for what worked last, so it too will have a leaf. It's a beneficial mutation, so it sticks around in the DNA. It reproduces and it's offspring DNA adds what worked last time (which would be 1). So it's offspring will have the original leaf and since one leaf worked last time, it'll end up with 2. It reproduces and includes what worked last time (still 1) and comes out with 3 leaves. Last time 2 leaves worked, so it adds that in when it reproduces, giving you 5 leaves. 3 leaves worked last time, so when it reproduces it adds those 3 leaves in with the 5 and comes out with 8 leaves. Since 5 leaves worked for sure last time, it adds that coding in again and comes out with 13. Rinse and repeat and you'll end up with a plant where you can find the golden ratio, seemingly intelligent design.. but that's only if you're looking for intelligent design.
     
  7. Let me start off by saying im not against religion. If it makes u a good person then by all means beleive.

    Not that that is out the way.

    It could be hard to believe that a single cell created life. Some might also discredit the theory by throwing around the word luck... but can it be posible that we did just get lucky..

    Stuff somtimes happen in our favor. Maybe this is one of them? Im not saying I have answers but I do think alot....

    Also why is there only 2 theories on how live was formed? There should be hundreds of theories. Ee have no clues how we came about but we narrowed it down to 2 thoeries??? That just doesnt seem right to me.

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  8. It's more like 2 different avenues. Either life was created or life formed on it own. The specifics of how for either is where the variety comes into play. As for abiogenesis, I think what messes people up is the "first cell". That's an assumption that it can only happen once, but if it can happen once, then logic dictates it could happen again. That's how I can confidently say life elsewhere in the universe exists, cause it exists here now. Evolution can happen convergently, meaning the same kind of traits evolve independently of one another. Like bats and birds with their wings. If life can evolve convergently, why can't it form convergently? A convergent abiogenesis. Where single cells form independently of one another within the primordial soup. This idea of "one shot" formation of life is almost just as bad as creationism.
     
  9. I had no idea the soup of life was a theory. Or is it abiogenesis from which the soup of life comes from?

    Either way, this is all very interesting in that you have two very probable reasons for which life came to be, but, still very difficult to prove as valid. What concerns me is what came before God? I know we were not going to discuss that here, but this is something that I have thought of for hours and hours. I would like to believe in the Big Bang, but even when I watch documentaries and read theories, models, and other explanations for it, I am I still left wondering "But, what about the universe? WHO or WHAT created matter and the dark matter?" Did the universe REALLY exist, at one point in time, as a singularity? How is that possible????

    I love to read other points of views, opinions, and thoughts on this sort of thing. It just baffles my mind how much we, as a population on Earth, have come to understand life, but how little we know.
     
  10. It's worth mentioning that DNA (or whatever building block you please) can form up in so many different ways. It's why we have all different sorts of life forms and genetic mutations and kids with extra chromosomes and shit. It doesn't seem to be so much of an exact recipe, rather life can form in many different conditions. When life first appeared it was probably quite basic in form, but slowly grew more complex as it was able to reproduce and mutate and those mutations survive more conditions and further go on in such a manner. This is evolution.

    Life isn't as special as people like to think IMO. It just happens given enough time and enough elements interacting in a given area
     
  11. DNA did not program itself. That is like saying water molecules programmed themselves to be the perfect shape to function as they do. It formed that way because it works that way.
     
  12. Hes known as The Architect- and hes the one whos behind the Matrix, This was explained already in real life documentary called The Matrix: Revolutions.
     
  13. I don't think we can ever really disprove God. People are going to believe no matter what evidence is given (look at scientologists). I don't know why creationists try and ask every atheist how they think life began. Nobody knows! They ask us like we are atheists because we discovered the true beginning of life. We are atheists because we don't believe that "God did it" is the true answer. We believe that our species is still learning about life and space. Will we ever know? Probably not, but it is not wrong to deny the idea of God.
     
  14. your having trouble because you are thunking aabout DNA as a code.

    DNA is not a code.

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